10/5/09

Orthodox leaders have announced with pride (!) that they are going to combat the outbreak of serious high crimes and misdemeanors that Jews have committed this year with... sermons!

Oh - my - goodness. Not sermons! Anything but that!

Ben Harris of JTA reported that, "Yeshiva University President Richard Joel was one of six Modern Orthodox leaders who signed on to a letter asking pulpit rabbis to address Jewish ethics in their High Holidays sermons."

Harris says, "The Orthodox world has been paying markedly greater attention this holiday season to promoting Jewish ethical behavior."

And don't think they are doing this with sermons alone. No. They are also holding "seminars on the topic" and have published two books on Jewish business ethics.

That should do it - the one, two, three punch of sermons, seminars and books. You won't see any more Jewish crooks for a while!

But wait, there is more, just for good measure, they are throwing in a story about the world to come. Nothing deters evildoers like a scary story about hell fire and brimstone - or in this case about a serious interrogation, or actually about being asked one direct question.

"Noah Alper, founder of the Noah’s Bagels chain, notes in his new book 'Business Mensch' that the first question departed souls are asked by the heavenly court is how did they conduct their business."

Now we've got them where we want them. We know that Jewish crooks like Bernie Madoff, Ezra Merkin, Marc Dreier et. al. would never lie in heaven.

We commend our Orthodox leadership for their ingenious and diligent work - as usual.